Religiosity aspects in patients with epilepsy

- Religiosity aspects were studied in 159 patients with epilepsy using the Duke Religion Index.
- High intrinsic and nonorganizational religiosities were more frequent in patients with epilepsy than in controls.
- The Duke Religion Index was not related to quality of life.
- High religiosity is related to clinical aspects of epilepsy.

The objectives of this study were to assess religiosity aspects in patients with epilepsy (PWEs) and controls and to determine whether such aspects were related to the samples' clinical, sociodemographic, and QOL-31 data. The Duke Religion Index was administered to 159 adult PWEs and 50 controls. The relationships between the Duke Religion Index and the study variables of the two groups were compared. Intrinsic religiosity (IR) and nonorganizational religiosity (NOR) were higher in PWEs than in controls. Logistic regression showed that being female (p = 0.022) and having mesial temporal lobe epilepsy with hippocampus sclerosis (MTLE-HS) (p = 0.003) were predictors of high organizational religiosity (OR) and that high NOR was associated with MTLE-HS (p = 0.026) and controlled seizures. Further, only MTLE-HS (p = 0.002) was predictive of high IR. The Duke Religion Index and QOLIE-31 scores were not related. Different forms of interictal religiosity are related to clinical aspects of epilepsy.